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No restraining order for pharmacist
The pharmacist is facing a 24-count indictment on drug charges.
YOUNGSTOWN — A Mahoning County Common Pleas Court magistrate has denied a request by a pharmacist, who was indicted on criminal charges, for a temporary restraining order that would bar the state pharmacy board from conducting an administrative hearing on his pharmacy license while the criminal case is pending.
Magistrate Dennis Sarisky declined Monday to issue the order requested by Gary A. Evankovich, 53, of Devonshire Drive, Boardman, who was indicted in January on 24 counts of sale of dangerous drugs in a reported long-distance Internet prescription scheme. Evankovich pleaded innocent to the criminal charges and was set free on $100,000 bond.
The Ohio State Board of Pharmacy hearing is set for today.
In his ruling, Sarisky cited a 1988 Ohio 3rd District Court of Appeals ruling that the protection against compulsory self-incrimination in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution isn’t intended to bar civil litigation while the possibility of a criminal trial exists.
Sarisky also cited an Ohio Supreme Court decision that a civil trial need not be delayed pending an appeal from a criminal conviction and sentence.
A hearing on Evankovich’s request for a preliminary injunction will be set within 14 days, Sarisky said.
“Gary Evankovich cannot be pressured into choosing between a rock and a whirlpool, between the loss of his livelihood or the loss of his freedom,” Evankovich’s lawyer, Michael J. McGee of Warren, argued unsuccessfully in his motion for a TRO and preliminary injunction.
“The state of Ohio, in forcing this false choice upon him, has indeed violated his Fifth- and 14th-Amendment rights and should be prohibited and restrained from doing so,” McGee argued.
In the criminal case, the illegal-drug orders are alleged to have originated via the Internet in the Caribbean, and the prescriptions were written by a New York physician and sent to Evankovich via the Internet, according to Robert E. Bush Jr., chief of the criminal division of the county prosecutor’s office.
Ohio law forbids physicians from prescribing drugs for patients they haven’t seen, Bush said. Evankovich illegally filled prescriptions in cases where he knew or should have known that the physician didn’t see the patient for whom the drugs were being prescribed, Bush explained.
In the indictment, Evankovich, an owner of North Lima and Bel-Park pharmacies, is accused of illegally filling more than 10,000 prescriptions totaling more than 1 million doses.
Among the drugs Evankovich is charged with dispensing illegally in large quantities are Fioricet, a strong narcotic pain reliever and relaxant; Tramadol, a narcoticlike pain reliever; and Soma, a muscle relaxer.
The criminal case is assigned to Judge Maureen A. Sweeney.